No. That was really a half-assed reboot. The OP could be suggesting would could have been: a really visionary and daring reboot. It wouldn't have been TOS, but it could have been as forward thinking as TOS was in its day.
What Might a "Truly New" STAR TREK Be Like?
- Thread starter FalTorPan
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That's what I mean, yes.
A show like Star Trek, made well now, would be more like Avatar visually and conceptually than anything else that's been done.
It also could not be done with the kind of naive moralizing that's part-and-parcel of the original.
It also could not be done with the kind of naive moralizing that's part-and-parcel of the original.
I don't know. I liked Avatar but found the politics of it about as subtle as Let That Be Your Last Battlefield. YMMV.
Well then something like that could go in a number of directions. And who's to say it still can't happen after Abrams' Trek has run its course?
For obvious reasons the TV franchise is on hold but my guess is that if Enterprise's performance didn't set it back we'd probably be watching a trek looking something like StarGate Universe. Dark, dreary, not a place you'd want to stick around. This restbid may have prevented that.
Ditto. I also prefer a hero to be someone I can admire, not someone who is packing baggage or makes bad decision after bad decision and gets his butt whipped. If I wanted that I'd watch the typical cop show. I sure that there are so many stories to be told in the star trek universe that TPTB haven't even scratched the surface.
It's probably a good thing Jeffrey Hunter as Christopher Pike didn't end up as the lead of STAR TREK, then. I'm sure his character would have changed as the series progressed, but in "The Cage" he's burnt out with starship command after some bad decisions that got people killed or injured. Definitely packing baggage, as you put it.
A while back I had this great idea of a one character spin off, sort of a Mcgyver ( solving big Star fleet problems with a paper clip) in the Trek universe but no doubt they TPTB would never go for it. For some reason they're locked in a seven cast member mindset. Then there's the logistics problem. The need for reusable sets.
Regardless of your personal feelings about how they did it, it's still Trek remade for 2009 and beyond...
I really don't think that would be a problem for TPTB, IMO. All of the Trek shows reused existing sets for various other ships and starbases. A new Trek series may indeed have a smaller cast--I don't think TOS really had "a big seven" until TWOK myself.Fezziwig said:
Here's something to remember: an idealized future doesn't automatically mean everyone in it is bland is sappy and no one argues a la TNG type sensibility. TOS did convey the idea of an idealized future, but it's denizens still argued and were passionate yet respectful of each other. The former makes it difficult to fashion drama. The latter works just fine.
I could see a "new" Star Trek done in different ways. You could do it similar to TOS' take on it in depicting science and technology as advanced as you can envision it. This way you could still have FTL star travel, teleportation and many of the familiar ideas yet really pushed ahead of what was originally envisioned. Or you could begin dialing it back to make it seem more credible. I can even imagine a Star Trek with a fast relativistic starship where star travel takes years only the crew experiences the voyage as days, weeks, and months because of time dilation. No transporter and yet much of the other technology could be just as advanced. If one mines speculative science materiel and SF literature you'll find ideas that make what we see in Trek almost 19th century in comparison. And, yes, I'm exaggerating a bit to make a point.
There are definitely different ways to do it assuming one has the guts to have confidence in the ideas. I will add, though, that the more drastic the changes the more one should consider just calling it something else. That way you avoid brand expectations so to speak and your work stands on its own.
I could see a "new" Star Trek done in different ways. You could do it similar to TOS' take on it in depicting science and technology as advanced as you can envision it. This way you could still have FTL star travel, teleportation and many of the familiar ideas yet really pushed ahead of what was originally envisioned. Or you could begin dialing it back to make it seem more credible. I can even imagine a Star Trek with a fast relativistic starship where star travel takes years only the crew experiences the voyage as days, weeks, and months because of time dilation. No transporter and yet much of the other technology could be just as advanced. If one mines speculative science materiel and SF literature you'll find ideas that make what we see in Trek almost 19th century in comparison. And, yes, I'm exaggerating a bit to make a point.
There are definitely different ways to do it assuming one has the guts to have confidence in the ideas. I will add, though, that the more drastic the changes the more one should consider just calling it something else. That way you avoid brand expectations so to speak and your work stands on its own.
Harvey is dead on. Let's also not forget that Kirk has some baggage of his own as the series develops.
Just because the universe is darker, doesn't mean that it can't have heroes inhabiting it that you can look up to.
It's easy to be a saint in paradise...
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You didn't notice the naive moralizing in Avatar?
But I think you've hit the nail right on the head there. Star Trek today would pander to liberal sensibilities in the same ham-handedly hypocritical way Avatar did, by flattering the audience that they are on the side of the oppressed natives and nature and all that good stuff, of course without at all addressing why it is that people are ever in favor of oppressing natives and destroying the environment, or at least oblivious to it all.
And since I wrote my last post in this thread, I have to apologize to Star Wars a bit. At least as it's been developing in the Clone Wars series, it's actually showing some inkling of sophistication in its political storyline.
I don't admire heroic stereotypes any more than I admire forty-foot tall gorillas - both are fantasies. I admire real people.
A show that has zero humans as part of the main cast, and in which humans/the Federation are represented as the bad guys.
No they wouldn't. nuBSG has what, 1.5-2 million fans at most? Hollywood knows that that is a flop and hence would never make anything like that.Temis the Red-Nosed Vorta said:
The above quotation also makes no sense because Abrams' movie is a Hollywood movie and it epitomizes exactly what a modern Hollywood version of Trek will do to Trek. That is, make it into poorly-written, meaningless fluff for which the only important production consideration is to cast actors and actresses that the public considers to be 'hot.'
I'd like to see a new Star Trek where they have the capability to explore different Galaxies other than the Milky Way. Technology-wise it would have to be based in 27-28th Century +.
Although there have been some occassions where they have been to other galaxies, I don't recall any significant exploration etc.
Although there have been some occassions where they have been to other galaxies, I don't recall any significant exploration etc.
No, it's science-fiction.
I think a "new" Star Trek being produced today instead of the 1960s would have a much more darker tone to it. Looking at video games and other movies set in the future, almost all of them have a dark, post-apocalyptic tone. Fallout, Terminator, etc. The future is seeped with war and nobody can trust anybody. There would be no happy and exciting exploration of new planets and species. In fact, I think it would resemble the future as presented in "Mirror, Mirror". Cuthroat and evil.
As far as technology, I think a lot of the exploration would take place from the safety of the bridge. All clean, tidy, and safe. And boring. No face-to-face interactions. Nobody beaming aboard. Just safe and a hands-off approach.
As far as technology, I think a lot of the exploration would take place from the safety of the bridge. All clean, tidy, and safe. And boring. No face-to-face interactions. Nobody beaming aboard. Just safe and a hands-off approach.
Don't know if this matters for the OP, but in one manuscript I had a fictional TV show called "Star Trek Universe" is repeatedly named by several main characters--all three of them, born and raised in a Lunar settlement--as their inspiration for joining the astronaut corps. Characteristic changes to the show are:
1) The Enterprise: Has no artificial gravity, since the main set is in lunar orbit, so they dispense with artificial gravity entirely. The ship is propelled by a warp drive that can accelerate the ship to any speed from zero to infinity and brake it again on arrival: a reactionless drive, but still basically newtonian in that you have to accelerate and decelerate. Phasers are still the main defensive weapon, but photon torpedoes are a kind of incredibly powerful and persistent pursuit vehicle with a sophisticated warhead, basically a suicidal robot with abandonment issues. The ship's "shields" are physical slats deployed on the outside of the hull like reactive armor; a nano-molecular assembler rebuilds them, so when they are destroyed they appear to slowly "grow back" and regenerate.
2) Landing Party: The secondary sets are on the moon with various implements to simulate slightly higher gravity and domes for Earth-like environments. The Enterprise rarely encounters M-class planets. LOTS OF USE OF SPACE SUITS. The Starfleet space suit is almost as iconic as the Enterprise now, it's a flashy and memorable design that does just about everything and is so prominent that landing parties talk about their space suits the way fighter pilots used to talk about their planes. There are no "transporters," landing parties literally jump off the ship, dive through the atmosphere and land using suit thrusters; they return to the ship the same way, though shuttlecraft can be deployed to retrieve people whose suits are damaged or malfunctioning (or to deliver things and people who aren't trained to use space suits).
3) Aliens: most alien races are exotic different types of organisms; arachnids, birds, squids, giant snakes, etc, best represented by animatronic puppets (easy to do in microgravity). The other "humanoid" races--the Klingons, the Vulcans, the Romulans--are presented as being descended from human colonists whose biology and culture have adapted over generations to alien environments.
4) Characters: Essentially the same as TOS, though reflective of (for the time) future history where humans have already colonized the solar system and divisions have begun to grow between the Earth population and the colonists. In this sense, Star Trek has always been reflective of culture in general, and will be again in the future.
5) War: Star Trek presents "space war" as something that is NEVER large, since the expense of trying to subjugate en entire planet is well beyond the economic or military power of any one (or really, any TEN) governments. The majority of space war takes place face to face (sometimes hand to hand between away teams in space suits), usually in space, fought for control of relatively small and hard-to-find asteroids/comets that contain valuable materials like dilithium or alien artifacts.
Of course, that'd be Star Trek as re-imagined about a hundred years from now... I severely hope the brand is even still around at that point.
1) The Enterprise: Has no artificial gravity, since the main set is in lunar orbit, so they dispense with artificial gravity entirely. The ship is propelled by a warp drive that can accelerate the ship to any speed from zero to infinity and brake it again on arrival: a reactionless drive, but still basically newtonian in that you have to accelerate and decelerate. Phasers are still the main defensive weapon, but photon torpedoes are a kind of incredibly powerful and persistent pursuit vehicle with a sophisticated warhead, basically a suicidal robot with abandonment issues. The ship's "shields" are physical slats deployed on the outside of the hull like reactive armor; a nano-molecular assembler rebuilds them, so when they are destroyed they appear to slowly "grow back" and regenerate.
2) Landing Party: The secondary sets are on the moon with various implements to simulate slightly higher gravity and domes for Earth-like environments. The Enterprise rarely encounters M-class planets. LOTS OF USE OF SPACE SUITS. The Starfleet space suit is almost as iconic as the Enterprise now, it's a flashy and memorable design that does just about everything and is so prominent that landing parties talk about their space suits the way fighter pilots used to talk about their planes. There are no "transporters," landing parties literally jump off the ship, dive through the atmosphere and land using suit thrusters; they return to the ship the same way, though shuttlecraft can be deployed to retrieve people whose suits are damaged or malfunctioning (or to deliver things and people who aren't trained to use space suits).
3) Aliens: most alien races are exotic different types of organisms; arachnids, birds, squids, giant snakes, etc, best represented by animatronic puppets (easy to do in microgravity). The other "humanoid" races--the Klingons, the Vulcans, the Romulans--are presented as being descended from human colonists whose biology and culture have adapted over generations to alien environments.
4) Characters: Essentially the same as TOS, though reflective of (for the time) future history where humans have already colonized the solar system and divisions have begun to grow between the Earth population and the colonists. In this sense, Star Trek has always been reflective of culture in general, and will be again in the future.
5) War: Star Trek presents "space war" as something that is NEVER large, since the expense of trying to subjugate en entire planet is well beyond the economic or military power of any one (or really, any TEN) governments. The majority of space war takes place face to face (sometimes hand to hand between away teams in space suits), usually in space, fought for control of relatively small and hard-to-find asteroids/comets that contain valuable materials like dilithium or alien artifacts.
Of course, that'd be Star Trek as re-imagined about a hundred years from now... I severely hope the brand is even still around at that point.
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